on of the psychical activity of the World-eject; and
hence, not only have we no right to predict a future eclipse with
certainty, but we have not so much as the right to affirm that even a
past eclipse must have taken place of necessity. For we have no right to
affirm that at any one period of cosmic history the action of the
World-eject must have been what it was, or could not have been other
than it was. Our knowledge of the obverse aspect of this action (in the
course of physical causation) is, as I have said, purely empirical; and
this is merely another way of saying that although we do know what the
action of the World-eject has been at such and such a period of cosmic
history, we can have no means of knowing what else it might have been.
For anything that we can tell to the contrary, the whole history of the
solar system, for example, might have been quite different from what it
has been; the course which it actually has run may have been but one out
of an innumerable number of possible alternatives, any other of which
might just as well have been adopted by the World-eject.

Now, if this is true of natural causation in the case of the macrocosm,
it would appear to be equally so of natural causation in the case of the
microcosm. Indeed, prediction in the case of human activity is so much
less certain than in the case of cosmic activity, that the attribute of
free-will is generally ascribed to the former, while rarely suggested as
possibly belonging to the latter. And similarly as regards past action.
If we are unable to say that at any period in the past history of the
solar system the World-eject might not have deflected the whole stream
of events into some other channel, how can we be able to say that at any
given period of his past history the Man-eject could not have performed
an analogous act? Obviously, the only reason why we are not accustomed
to entertain this supposition in either case, is because our judgements
are beset with the assumption that the principle of causality is prior
to that of mind--something of the nature of Fate superior even to the
gods. And, no less obviously, if once we see any reason to regard the
principle of causality as merely co-extensive with that of mind, the
whole question as between Necessity and Free-will lapses; there is
nothing to show that a man's action in the past might not have been
other than it was. The only outward restraint placed upon the exercise
of his Will is th